Village Visit Report 1

REPORT

ON

VILLAGE ATTACHMENT TOUR, 2015

(ASSISTANT DR, CSS, GOI)

Submitted By: - GROUP NUMBER 3

ADR BATCH 252

ADR Training Centre Host Organization

ISTM, Old JNU Campus, Delhi DDU, SIRD, Lucknow, UP

ISTM Tour Faculty Guide Course Team (DDU, SIRD)

Mr. Chandan Mukherjee Shri B.D. Chaudhary

Mr. H. Govind Dr. S.K. Singh

Shri G.K. Tiwari

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Contents

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.........................................................................................3

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY............................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................5

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT..............................................................................................7

STRUCTURE..............................................................................................................8

RECOMMENDATIONS.............................................................................................12

CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................19

TABLE OF FIGURES................................................................................................20

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

DDU- Deen Dayal Upadhyaya

SIRD- State Institute of Rural Development

RIRD- Regional Institute of Rural Development

ISTM- Institute of Secretariat Training and Management

ADR- Assistant Direct Recruits

VAT- Village Attachment Tour

NRDWP- National Rural Drinking Water Programme

NBA- Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan

TSC- Total Sanitation Campaign

PDS- Public Distribution System

ICDS-Integrated Childcare Development System

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The report consists of a detailed analysis of our group about the Rural Sanitation and the level of implementation of the NRDWP scheme in the village. A group of 11 members surveyed 3 villages- Jihawa, Bhasanda and Kushari. The incomplete constructions of toilets which had no gates or had small pit holes were found in some houses. Members came across many verbal complaints by villagers which highlighted the unlawful acts of Pradhan and unconstitutional middlemen with respect to partial payment for toilet construction. The ignorance on the part of the rural folk about the ill effects of open defecation also came into light. Some people complained that the Pradhan only provided workmen but didn’t give any money. When it came to the analysis of the efficacy of the NRDWP scheme, it was observed by the group that there was little or no awareness in the villagers about the water borne diseases. The water quality of some of the hand pumps was alright, but in many places the water was found to be of yellow colour which could be attributed to the presence of contaminants like minerals, arsenic etc. Most of the ponds in the three villages were dry and the ones which had water were covered with algal growth due to mismanagement. Many open drains, clogged drains etc were found due to inefficiency on the part of the villages’ Safai Karamchari. All this has been discussed in the structural part of the report from page 8 to 11. Recommendations to improve the present situation mentioned above were proposed by the group. Some of these are appointment of more than one Safai Karamchari in the village, usage of visual aids for creating awareness, DBT implementation etc. which are mentioned in the page no.12.

The sources of the pictures included in the report have been mentioned in the Table of Figures on page no.20

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INTRODUCTIONOur ADR batch 252’s training journey which commenced from 20 November, 2015 in ISTM was headed to a pleasant surprise when we were informed by our esteemed Batch Coordinator Mr. H. Govind (Dy. Dr, ISTM) on 11th December that we were soon going to visit some villages in Lucknow and gain some firsthand experience about the living conditions of the villagers. This official visit was organised as per our training module where village tour is an integral part of the comprehensive training session of the ADRs deployed in the Central Secretariat.

We were assigned a host organisation named Deen Dayal Upadhyaya State Institute of Rural Development, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (DDU, SIRD) which was to conduct our Village Attachment Tour (VAT). Our VAT coordinators at this organisation divided our batch in 5 teams for the village visit. Each team was allotted one to two rural government schemes whose implementation in the villages was to be observed and analysed.

Villages Visited- Three villages were visited by us namely Jihawa, Bhasanda and Kushari belonging to districts Raebareily, Lucknow and Unnao respectively. These three villages were surveyed by us in three consecutive days.

Why this visit- The objective of taking the ADRs for this village visit is that the ADRs not only get familiarized with the village life but also develop empathy for the villagers to whom the government schemes don’t reach properly due to certain critical gaps in the scheme implementations. The participants of this VAT were to analyse and find the critical gaps in the government schemes being run for the betterment of the life of the village folk.

Our Team- Ours was the third team which consisted of 11 participants from our batch. The structure of the team was thoughtfully framed by the Course Coordinators of DDU, SIRD, Lucknow so that heterogeneity was maintained in the group which included 4 girls and 7 boys. The names and contact details of our group’s members have been included in the Annexure 1.

Schemes analysed by us- There were various schemes which were allotted to our classmates some of which include PDS, ICDS, Rural Housing, MGNREGA etc. But the themes whose critical gaps were to be found by our group no 3 were Sanitation and NRDWP (National Rural Drinking Water Programme).

Our Expectations- This village visit was the first rural visit for many of our group members due to which gaining familiarity with the village lifestyle was one of our chief expectations. Also, as an urban denizen of India, we usually ponder about the lack of efficacy of the schemes that the Central government makes in collaboration

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with the States for the rural areas. So, we also viewed this village trip as a great chance to delve deeper into the village setup to find out the real obstacles that were hindering the effective implementation of these schemes.

Visit Outcome- This VAT made us much more sensitive towards the village folk and their problems. Undoubtedly, we have seen the manner and level of implementation of the rural government schemes which made us more competent in providing some small but positive contribution in the rural policy framing whenever need be.

Knowledge gained- Every urban citizen of India must visit and stay in the villages for a few days at least to understand the stark differences in the living conditions of rural and urban people. The most important understanding was that the seemingly small amenities like proper sanitation facilities and potable drinking water are considered a privilege in the villages. Various critical gaps in the implementation of Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan and NRDWP were discovered by our group which have been discussed later in the report.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost we are thankful to our training co-ordinator Mr Chandan Mukherjee (Dy. Dir., ISTM) and Mr. Herkal Govind (Dy. Dir., ISTM) for materializing the integration of Village Attachment Tour (VAT) as an important part of our course curricula. We would like to acknowledge the contribution of Mr. C. Mukherjee in widening our overall perspective by playing different roles such as a mentor, coordinator and supervisor and for inputs and moral support in designing and completion of this report.

We have immense pleasure in expressing our deep sense of gratitude, indebtness and sincere thanks to our esteemed VAT course team of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, Lucknow consisting of Shri G.K. Tiwary(Faculty member/Course Coordinator), Dr. S.K. Singh(Asst. Course Director) and Shri B.D. Chaudhary(Course Director) who facilitated our accommodation and made us to learn all the VAT components by facilitating one-to-one interaction with the villagers. We are thankful for their guidance and sharing with us some useful experiences during the village attachment tour.

In order to complete field work successfully, we would like to present special thanks to all the research participants and villagers who provided their valuable time while making our stay meaningful and study valuable. We are extremely happy to reveal our special thanks to our classmates for their inspiration.

GROUP NO.- 3

ADR Batch No-252

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STRUCTURE

Beginning of our journey- We started our journey with our batch consisting of 53 candidates from the New Delhi Railway Station on the morning of 13 th December, 2015. We boarded the Swarna Shatabdi Express and reached Lucknow the same day in the late evening. The host organisation had sent buses to take us to their training campus. It took us about one hour to reach DDU, SIRD, Lucknow.

Structure of Team- On the very next day, after breakfast, our Village Attachment Tour training started in the “in-house” manner. We had gathered in the Conference Hall-1(Mahewa hall) where we were given course briefing and we were made aware of the vision of SIRD in organising the village attachment tour for us. The faculty members in our Course Team cleared our concepts of Rural Development. We were given a lot of instructions stating what not to do and what to do in order to mingle with the villagers easily. Our batch was divided into 5 groups and each group consisted of girls and boys both. This arrangement was specially done to ensure that whenever we interacted with a village family, we made them feel comfortable to open up with us.

Study Parameters and Allotment of Scheme- Our team was allotted the scheme of Sanitation in villages and NRDWP. We had to study the implementation of these schemes and then find critical gaps in the implementation of the same which were degrading the efficiency and output. We had been given various study parameters

which were to be observed in the village. They are:- No. of Hand pumps in the village

India Mark-II, Depth of bore well. No. of toilets in the village constructed and used.,Attitude of villagers for use of toilets.Drainage system of water.Awareness about Water borne diseases. Awareness about harm of open defecation Testing status of water by Panchayat or other agencies.Status of WDC & their role.Training status about drinking water in the villages.Role of Safai Karamchari Role of Pradhan and Community in sanitation and Status about tap water.

Transportation- Two tour buses had been arranged to transport all of us to the three villages one by one on separate days.

Mode of information collection-

1) Primary- we collected most of our information about the allotted theme by visiting the houses of the villagers and talking to them about their day to day problems. The villagers were very cooperative in acquainting us with the real plight of the village sanitation, drinking water and drainage.

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2) Secondary- We also researched about the villages on the internet to gather some second party information about the demographic data for the three villages in order to cross check our observation.

Demographic structure of the villages

1) Jihawa - This village is located in the block of Maharajganj and the district of Raebareily. The total population of this village according to the 2011 census is 1985 in which 1030 people are male and 955 people are female. There are total 574 families living in the village as per records. There are 274 SC families and the number of people holding the MNREGA job cards is 212. There are 43 hand pumps as of now in the village. The Gram Pradhan of this village is a female- Smt. Dhanraja.

2) Bhasanda - Bhasanda village is located in the Lucknow district of Uttar Pradesh. The population of this village was found to be 3008.It also has a female gram pradhan named Smt Krishna Kumari.

3) Kushari -Kushari village is located in the Unnao district and the gram pradhan is a male named Sh. Vinod Kumar. The total population of this village is around 4200. The SC families are 693 in number whereas the OBC families are 421. The total number of families is 571. There are 183 BPL families in this village.

Village statistics related to our theme-

Jihwa Bhasanda Kushari

Hand pumps 43 113 18

Water Table (ft) 50 50 30

Depth of Bore well (ft) 120-150 180-200 120-150

No of toilets constructed 50 50 34

No of toilets used (%) 30 45 20

Tap Water Nil One Nil

Water Testing Never Never Never

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NRDWP

Introduction- It is a part of Eleventh Schedule of constitution & matter of State Subject entrusted to Panchayats.It was introduced as Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme (ARWSP) in 1972–73 to address the major issues like sustainability, water availability and supply, poor water quality, etc., the Rural Drinking Water Supply Guidelines have been revised w.e.f. 1.4.2009.

The revised program is known as National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP).

Observation-

Our team of 11 members further divided into 3 groups consisting of 4,4 and 3 candidates so that we were able to survey more number of houses and cover majority of the village houses. Our technique of surveying worked and we covered 40, 35 and 48 houses in the three villages namely Jihawa, Bhasanda and Kushari.

We observed that the quality of the hand pumps was good when they were installed but now quite a few number of handpumps needed to be repaired. The quality of water drawn from the hand pumps in all the three villages was found to be poor because the villagers complained that the water from many hand pumps turned yellow after keeping in the bucket for one hour.

When we researched about this issue on the internet, we discovered that the colour change of water happened because of excess presence of minerals and contaminants like arsenic etc.

But there was no provision for water purification. No water testing had ever been done to examine the water quality of these rural places which were visited by us. The villagers also were found to be totally ignorant about the remedial solutions or the harm of drinking such water.

There was a little awareness about diarrhea in the villages, but, the villagers had no idea about other diseases like cholera, dysentery, guinea worm. We also observed that the NGOs and ANMs have interacted personally.

Water boiling is considered a cumbersome process there because the villagers still use wood as the chief fuel source. So, they were of the opinion that they can’t take out enough time to ignite the wood and boil the water so many times a day.

Drainage

Observation- The drainage condition across the three villages was found similar. The main roads had properly constructed drains and they were cleaned occasionally. But

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the other branched drains were not properly constructed. The Water Development Committee(WDC) was not constituted in any of the village due to the recent panchayat elections. We were told by the pradhan that the WDC committee would be constituted with 7 members from the village.

Sanitation

Observation- The toilet usage was restricted due to the lack of Sewage Pipelines. Preference was given to children/elderly for toilet usage. The lack of repair of toilets was very evident with the pitiable plight of some toilets which were unusable.Only superficial awareness was found in the villagers about the benefits of using toilets. An interesting observation was that the womenfolk of the village who had toilets constructed in their homes also used to accompany other women for open defecation for security reasons. At a few places, peculiarly, the toilet space was being used for fodder and miscellaneous storage.

Nepotism by the village Pradhan in distribution of funds was also reported by some families. Some villagers were being given less than Rs 12000 due to corruption by the middlemen like “Pradhan-Pati”.

Time spent in every village- Our host organization facilitated the village visits which lasted for 4 hours per day.

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RECOMMENDATIONS

Our group discussed the issues observed in the villages which were causing the lack of proper implementation of issues like Sanitation, Water quality and Drainage. Therefore, after much deliberation we have proposed some solutions which might be helpful in eradicating these issues.

Drainage-

Sewage Pipelines need to be constructed

Enhancing awareness about harms of open defecation

Funds need to be released for repairs

Peer Pressure can be tackled by constructing toilets in every house

Improving Toilet Usage-

1) By creating awareness using personal interaction with villagers using the services of ANMs and anganwadis.

2) By constructing toilets in every house to tackle the issue of peer pressure.

Uniform Toilet Construction-

The problem of corruption and favouritism by the village pradhan in the allocation of funds for the toilet construction can be tackled by implementing the DBT(Direct Benefit Transfer) Scheme in which the beneficiaries will directly get the amount of 12,000INR in their bank accounts. This scheme had been implemented in the LPG subsidy also and it was a great success.

Awareness about drinking clean water

Visual teaching aids (posters, banners, etc..) can be used for sensitization

Low quality kerosene oil can be provided to villagers for convenient water boiling

Volunteers need to personally discuss precautionary measures

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Fig 1: Congested well

Fig2: Handpump Water Quality Testing Being Done

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Fig3: Fodder stored in the toilet which is in unused condition

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Fig4: Toilet Gate not been constructed

Fig5: Open and Congested Drain

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Fig6: No drainage system for the house

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Fig7: Illegibile advertisement which serves no puprose

Fig8: Pond was not cleaned

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Fig9:Drinking water left open, utensiles dirty

Fig10: Roster not followed for cleaning purpose

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CONCLUSION

The complete analysis of the method of implementation of the Sanitation programme and the National Rural Drinking Water Programme makes it clear that there are some serious issues which are being overlooked during the planning phase for these schemes. These issues can be categorized in various categories like:-

i. Social causes

ii. Non-effective communication at various levels

iii. Lack of awareness and education

iv. Lack of stringent accountability at various levels

The rural sanitation schemes and NRDWP have a very noble cause behind them, which is the elevation of the habitation standards of the villages. But unless the above mentioned issues are tackled systematically, the best efficiency out of these schemes can’t be drawn.

Many of the social issues which are hampering the growth of these schemes’ reach are very difficult to eradicate completely because mere proper surveillance won’t be sufficient to free the minds of the villagers from the biases and prejudices that they have been chained with due to old and obsolete customs and traditions. Imparting proper education/awareness and enlightening the minds of the villagers are extremely crucial because when the villagers will deeply understand that sanitation and proper drinking water availability are such arenas which when improved will not only cause personal uplifting of the villages but also cause the uplifting of the village community as a whole, then they will be more receptive towards these schemes.

Some villages do have bright children who face a lot of hardships but eventually become doctors, engineers etc. But once they are educated, they don’t want to put to use their professional skills in the betterment of their own villages just because of the poor living conditions of the rural areas. Therefore improving sanitation scenario and improving the drinking water quality by locally available means can bring a drastic change and take the Indian villages to the path of genuine development.

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Table of Figures

Fig 1: Jihawa village

Fig2: Jihawa village

Fig3: Bhasanda Village

Fig4: Kushari village

Fig5: Bhasanda village

Fig6: Jihawa village


Fig8:Jihawa village


Fig10: Kushari village

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ANNEXURE-1

Group Members:-

S.No. Name Roll No. Address

1. Ritavari Vats 38 ISTM

2. Priyanka Bansal 34 ISTM

3. Manoj Kumar 28 ISTM

4. Manish Sharma 26 ISTM

5. Manish Giri 25 ISTM

6. Neha Tomar 31 ISTM

7. Jaideep Chhikara 19 ISTM

8. Kumar Satyam 23 ISTM

9. Priyanka Shukla 36 ISTM

10. Jobin George Varghese

20 ISTM

11. Manoj Chauhan 27 ISTM

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Village Visit Report 1

Documents

Transcript of Village Visit Report 1